The mother of a British-Egyptian man imprisoned in Egypt has declared she is willing to die on hunger strike to secure his release.
Laila Soueif, speaking from her hospital bed, urged the Prime Minister to intervene and pressure Egyptian authorities to free her son, Alaa Abd El-Fattah, a pro-democracy activist with dual nationality.
In an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme from St Thomas’ Hospital in London, Mrs Soueif stated, "My message is: use my death as leverage to get Alaa out. Don’t let my death be in vain."
Mrs Soueif, who has been on hunger strike for over eight months, has lost 42% of her body weight, now weighing 49kg. Doctors have warned that she is at risk of sudden death.
She told the broadcaster: “It’s something that I passionately don’t want to happen.
“Children want a mother, not a notorious mother – whether the notoriety is good or bad – but if that’s what it takes to get Alaa out of jail and to get all my children and grandchildren’s life back on track, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
In December 2021, Mr Abd El-Fattah was sentenced to five years in prison on charges of spreading false news, and should have been released last year.
In a conference outside the hospital on Tuesday, Sanaa Seif, Mrs Soueif’s daughter, said her mother’s blood sugar was still very low but that she was conscious.
She said: “She is fighting and I hope the Foreign Office uses this time her body has given us well.”
Ms Seif said she was supposed to have flown to Cairo on Tuesday to see her brother but stayed to be with her mother.
She had received two letters from Mr Abd El-Fattah – one of which was “very confused and short”, saying simply “Take care of yourself”.
“I am really worried about him,” she said.
She also said she wanted to save her mother’s life but understands her position “as a mother”.
Ms Seif said: “The only reason she cares about staying alive is us. She doesn’t want to go on living life like this and I understand that.”
Ms Seif accused the Foreign Office of not working fast enough and claimed no one from the Prime Minister’s office had been in touch directly about the state of negotiations for around three weeks.
She said: “We are going by the hour; they were measuring her vitals by the hour, at some point every 15 minutes.
“I expressed my frustration how it is insane that they (the Government) are taking weeks. They have not told me they have changed their pace.”
Ms Seif added: “I imagine that means they don’t have much to say.”
She also urged Foreign Secretary David Lammy to follow through on what he said when in opposition and limit the Egyptian ambassador’s access to Whitehall.
Conservative former minister Sir John Whittingdale, who is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Today programme Mr Abd El-Fattah was a “political activist” who had not committed “any crime that we would recognise”.
He said Mr Lammy was “outspoken” in opposition but that his action in Government since then “simply hasn’t had an effect”.
Sir John also called on the Foreign Office to change its travel advice for Egypt to warn Britons there is a risk they could “fall foul of the Egyptian authorities”.
“Egypt gets a huge income from tourism, a lot of that tourism comes from Britain and I think that might well put the pressure on that is obviously needed,” he said.
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